Living On A Prayer (Until the Hellhounds Take Me Home)
by Mae34
Summary: In the midst of the Apocalypse, Sam attends NA meetings, fights over the last slice of pizza, and learns how to swear in sixteen different languages. In the midst of a million tiny moments, Elpis still hides in a cage he once opened.


_This is the story of two brothers who loved each other and betrayed each other. _

Sure, it sounds like the beginning of the Apocalypse, but if anyone had asked Sam what he thought about it, he would have said that it sounded like the setup to a really bad joke. If given half a chance, he'd laugh at the punch line. Laugh and laugh and laugh until the tears came.

No one asked him so he never said anything. Never laughed. Never cried.

There really isn't much he can do at the end of the world.

* * *

The anger that simmered underneath the veil of Sam's clemency and dependence always threatened to stew through at the most inconvenient times; at late night interviews with witnesses, rare peaceful moments between him and his brother, even when a psychologist is telling him to _stop being so angry_.

There is no catalysis anymore. There might have been a time when there was, but Sam no longer remembers what it was and how to begin putting the monsters back in the box.

He's tried ways to filter his anger.

"Hey Cas, do you want to spar?"

He received a simple tilt of the head and narrowed eyes in return. Castiel, Sam learned, can be very vocal when he's not saying anything.

He almost asked Dean a million times over the summer, but he could never gain enough courage to do it. He can face demons and monsters (_himself_), but never, ever could he endure his brother's opposition. Not anymore.

So there wasn't much left that he could do. He dove into cases like saving lives still had meaning. He read scripture and went to NA meetings while avoiding the words 'yes' to the Devil and 'no' to his brother and 'why?' to anyone who cared (no one cared).

Always a student of the world, Sam's release was in learning. He needed to know how the read Bobby's dusty, old books so he picked up a few dictionaries and translation guides. A Spanish teacher once told him that the best way to learn a language is to learn how a native curses.

Bobby looked at Sam with a mix of worry, irritation, and sorrow when he caught him ranting with a mixture of Japanese, Spanish, Welsh and Quechua swears.

Bobby didn't say anything about the rant and neither did Sam. Bobby had given him that same vexed look since he was ten ("I swear I'm never going to be a hunter like my dad, Uncle Bobby"). Then again, he never could tell exactly what Bobby thought about him. For all he knew, Bobby was either worried that this lashing out was a sign of Sam's eventual breakdown or thought that Sam's punctuation of 'fuck you' in Welsh needed some work.

Three weeks later, Bobby dropped down a few heavy books in front of Sam where he was studying text in Greek. "If you're feelin' the need to learn the swears, boy, you're also gonna need to know the blessings," Bobby said, leaving no room for argument.

Sam only nodded but neither one mentioned how Sam's hand shook when he reached for the books.

* * *

He once tried normal. That worked as well as trying to defuse a nuclear bomb with a dull knife and a 'how to' guide.

When normal didn't work, he tried abnormal. He was a bit too good at it and everyone just ended up dead or dying. He didn't like it at all.

He then decided to try revenge, just like his dad. He was good at that as well and he found to like the idea way too much.

Plus, he accidently started the end of the world so… yeah.

He once told his brother that he was going to give redemption a go, but that was as much a dream as everything else he tried.

Now, there was nothing left but atonement. For the normal and the abnormal. For the revenge. For the end of the world.

For thinking he could be saved.

He didn't know it then but he's certain now: he was meant to die a damned man the moment he was born.

His only positive result out of all this was that at least he tried. He screwed everything up but he didn't give up.

He tried.

* * *

Karen was the fourth NA sponsor Sam went through before he really stuck to the program.

It wasn't from a lack of trying. No, he certainly tried, but between his hazardous schedule and "narcotic", he couldn't find a common ground to meet._  
_

It wasn't until when he first met Karen and she managed to head slap him in all her five foot four glory (_Honestly, how could someone jump that high?_) that she became his number one on speed dial for those times when he needed a number on speed dial.

They were sitting at a bar in the middle of nowhere, nursing on a couple of whiskeys she ordered the moment Sam arrived. He was surprised because she was the one who called him and she was the one willing to drive two hours to meet up.

"I haven't heard from you in awhile, Sam," Karen noted. Her soccer mom attitude and perfectly groomed dirty blond hair shined against the dim light of the bar. She stood out here in the dust and filth and, yet, she seemed at home. She reminded him so much of Ellen sometimes that it aches.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Sam agreed, not mentioning the latest confrontation with the angels and demons. There's only so many ways to tell someone that the Devil (_capital 'D', capital 'evil'_) has affection for him and is courting him like some lovesick teenager.

"You don't have to apologize. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

He's not alright. He's far from alright.

But neither is Karen. Dear, lovely Karen (_who has the soccer mom attitude because she_ is_ a soccer mom_) is still affected by the cocaine habit she had when she was younger. Her hair is greyer than it should be, her hands still shake as she takes a sip of her glass.

It wasn't until the birth of her first son and saw his own shaking body when she realized the transgressions she made.

She still mourns. Sam can see that in the way she looks at Sam sometimes, similar to the way Dean looks at him; sad, regretful, hopeful and hopeless all at once.

"No, I'm not alright," Sam tell her because he can. She's the one person he can tell. "I'm tired, Karen."

Karen nodded and took another sip before motioning the bartender for a refill. "Yeah, it's hard work keeping the devil off your back."

Sam choked on his drink and he coughed. He coughed and exhaled, but he couldn't get a grasp on the inhale. Out, out, but no in.

"Breathe, Sam. Breathe!"

It was slow but eventually, he managed a deep breath in. Then, another. And another until his heart stopped racing and the lightheadedness passed.

His forehead rests on the grainy surface of the bar, his back is being pounded by a firm hand to clear the liquid in his lungs and his drink is God knows where.

He's still tired. He's still not alright. He doesn't think that will ever change.

"Stercum," he whispers.

"Are you going to make it?" Karen jokes.

He turns his head to look at her but he doesn't answer. He's not sure what expression he's showing her but he feels helpless and pitiful and he can't breathe even though air is coming in. These feelings of despair just might be coming through on his face and maybe that's why she stops her hand on his back and pulls away.

"Do you believe I am going to have magic words of advice that's going to make it better?" she challenged.

Sam shrugged because, no, he never believed in magic words (_Please, Dean. Please forgive me_).

They sat there for a very long time.

Karen sighed and relented.

"Have Faith," she declared. "That's what I've learned. Living in the dark with whatever demons you face, you need faith to do it. And the second you lose that, you lose everything."

Well, that feeling of despair became quite worst. "I lost faith in God a long time ago, Karen."

"I never said anything about God, Sam."

* * *

"There is reason for hope," Sam said once.

And he believed it. He still does.

He just wishes someone would tell him the reason.

* * *

Sam hesitated at the front steps of the church.

It was a rundown building in the middle of a midsize city and he was only there because Bobby insisted. If it was Dean or if this decision was self motivated, he would have turn right around once he saw the steeple. ...Except it was Bobby. He might be a hypocrite and a lying bastard but Sam couldn't imagine his reaction when Sam said he couldn't go to the meeting.

The last meetings he went to were in rec centers and once in someone's home. He didn't want to admit that they help get through the hunger and the pain the last few months after realizing the implication of what he did, of what he'd become, but it was nice knowing that he at least wasn't alone in this battle.

Maybe alone in the demon blood problem, but it was still a narcotic, so he could still feel justified in attending the meetings.

Still, it was a church. He would have waited to find a place a little less… (_devout, divine, pious_) spiritual except the hunger pains the Horseman twisted in him haven't ebbed yet and the next meeting would likely be after his next run-in with a demon and its bloody stench.

Whether in fear or courage, Sam pushed himself towards the front door. Just as his hand grazed the handle, the door wrenched open on and a man step back in surprise at seeing Sam.

He was an older man with a shadowing of grey in his hair. Late fifty, maybe sixty. He was tall but only came up to Sam's nose. The white collar against his black shirt gave evidence to the man's profession.

"Oh, excuse me," the man said. "Are you here for the meeting? I wasn't expecting anyone for at least a half an hour."

Sam only nodded. (_The last word that had any meaning was his brother's name when he had just opened one too many cages.)_

The priest eyed him critically as if Sam was a puzzle that could be understood and figured. Sam was neither a puzzle nor understood, not when he knew all his sins have been laid out to the world in forms of dogging plagues and deadly curses.

"I relapsed," Sam whispered and laughed bitterly because it was far from the worst of his sins. It was, however, the reason why he was there and why he was hesitating over the entrance.

"It's okay," the priest reassured, his voice calm and collect like he actually _believed_ in that fact. "You're here."

"I..I tried. I really did. It just…wasn't enough."

And a man of faith placed a comforting hand on his shoulder; a man who didn't know him (_all who knew Sam ended up dead_) and was _still_ trying to help.

"It just means you're human."

Sam missed the meeting that night, but he figured that Bobby could forgive him for the negligence.

Give any man that much hope and he would be throwing up in the bushes on the side of a church too.

* * *

Bobby once had a bulldog named King. It was only at the salvage yard for a short while but it was the one animal that had a huge impact on Sam's life.

It seemed ridiculous, in fact. After all Sam been through, with grief and death and addiction and the start of the Apocalypse, the thoughts that kept him up most at night involve the dog that once attacked Sam when he was nine.

One second he was wrestling with the overgrown puppy and, in the next, jaws chomped down on his arm hard and drew blood. Bobby and his dad came running at the sounds of pain and Bobby whacked the dog hard to get him off the young boy.

That day still gives him nightmares. Always.

He doesn't mention it though. Not to Dean, who still feels guilty for not being there, or Bobby, who knew about King's abused past and still believed the dog was worth saving.

Sam dreams about a scared dog.

The nightmares with Lucifer are a kindness compared to that.

* * *

"Dean!"

A Servant of Heaven.

_Oh, God. Dean, what have you done?_

The squeal from the Impala's tires sent a sharp pain into Sam's heart as he watched his brother drive off. He's seen it, the deterioration of Dean's determination, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

_Dean._

Sam entered the hotel room and leaned wearily against door. The weight was just too much to bear. Dean was the one that kept him going. Dean was the one keeping him on the straight and narrow.

Now, Dean left, off to the places and actions that they've been avoiding with nothing more than a grip on each other and Winchester stubbornness.

"Sam?"

While Sam ran after Dean, Pastor Gideon had moved over to the bed Castiel sprawled on in an assumed attempt to check on the angel. At Sam's return, Castiel continued to stare ahead at nothing in particular and Pastor Gideon stood and looked at Sam with a mixture of grief and concern in his eyes.

All Sam saw was a father who just lost his angel and an angel who just lost his father.

_What have you done?_

"I'm sorry," Sam broke out to the Pastor. The words came without any consideration and he didn't know if he was giving condolences or pleading forgiveness.

"I am- Oh God, I am _so_ sorry."

Maybe he was doing both. Either way, Sam closed his eyes and hung his head at burden he felt.

"You're praying."

The response didn't come from the Pastor but down to Castiel. What was once a dull gaze of drunken trance, Castiel's attention from the bed was now turned fully and directly towards Sam. Something was different in Castiel's words.

"Sam Winchester, you are praying."

The words held something Sam never thought he would hear. Something he almost couldn't believe.

Reverence.

Castiel then nodded like he agreed with something said and moved to sit up on the bed with the Pastor's help. The angel wearily sighed and looked back up at Sam with renewed commitment.

"Okay, so what can we do?" Castiel asked.

"I-" Sam straightened himself away from the door and took a step closer to the bed. "I don't understand."

Castiel rolled his eyes at the ignorance of one Sam Winchester. The familiar action was more a comfort to Sam than Cas' sudden restoration.

"Dean is gone."

"Yeah…" Sam agreed. He also agreed that it was a bad thing.

"God is gone."

Sam quickly glanced at the only man in the room who really still believed in God but Pastor Gideon gave no reaction beyond simply watching. "Yeah…"

"The Four Housemen are ravaging the land, angels and demons are hunting you and the world is very close to ending. You have no plan, no brother and no hope in succeeding."

"Cas, I still don't-"

"And yet you pray, Sam."

Oh.

Sam could argue that his pleads to God were just words or use of blasphemy but it's mainly one argument that holds against any other.

"Yeah, well…prayer is the last action of a desperate man, right?"

Castiel gives another heavy sigh and stands from the bed. It takes a moment to steady himself but he holds back the pastor from his helping hands. His body shakes but everything else is steady for the first time in a long while.

"Yes, but…a last action is still an action. What can we do?"

Sam didn't hesitate this time. "Find Dean. Get him back to Bobby's and pray we can talk him out of doing something stupid."

Cas gave a slow, short nod. "Then we will do that."

* * *

A few days after the events at the Elysian Fields Hotel, Sam got an e-mail from a dead angel. There was no message in the body of the e-mail, just a header.

Nonetheless, a spike of rage bit at Sam's emotions.

_'It had to be you' _the header read.

Sam hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet, but he already knew what he had to do to put Gabriel's plan into action and throw the Devil back into the cage. He knew since the moment he saw the DVD. He didn't need a pep talk from beyond the grave.

Stupid, asshole of an angel. If the guy had to die to protect Sam and Dean from his brother, the least he could do was send him a message that was more than what every single angel had told him from the beginning.

As if an answer to a prayer, Sam got another e-mail from 'Trixie1513'. This time, there was no header but the message in the body made Sam's emotions flip from anger to fear and guilt and so many other sentiments he couldn't even begin to name.

_'Because you are a reason for hope. xoxo Gabriel'_

* * *

It was the rare moments of domesticity that Sam feared the most in his life. He's learned to deal with the life threatening situations only because it was his normal now.

The rapid pain of his beating heart didn't know what to do with the slow rhythms of a quiet evening in front of a TV with a tranquil brother.

They were at the tail end of a black dog case, a case which didn't end well for either brother.

Then again, black dog cases never usually did.

Black dogs were good bragging rights if a hunter could claim they got one and the gratification and respect was earned for good reasons; They were difficult to track, near impossible to kill and a hunter only had a limited amount of attempts to try.

The story went that you meet a black dog once for joy, twice for sorrow. The third time, you die.

"Yeah, yeah, the 'three strikes rule'," Dean brushed off when Sam reminded him two days ago when his brother first mentioned the case. "I know the lore, Sammy. Still, you know how much I've wanted to bag a black dog. How about one last hurrah before the big show down?"

Sam should have mentioned that they haven't taken a black dog case since Dean's confrontation with the hellhounds. Or that the world was ending and they still had two other Horsemen's rings to get to before they had any chance of trapping Lucifer back into the cage.

Instead, Sam watched Dean growl in frustration for two days at the wagging tail and drooling tongue of a dog way too playful to be a death omen. Dean probably would have given chase after that dog well into the night if the cliff hadn't suddenly given way under them, causing the brothers to tumble down the steep hill. Sam sprained his ankle and Dean ended up with a concussion in that fall.

That was meeting number two.

As much as they hated to end the case unresolved, it was time to pack it in and leave it for the next hunter with big dreams (and maybe one with just as many nightmares). They already had the room book for the night and they both needed rest from their injuries so Sam suddenly found himself in the confinement of a peaceful night with pizza and late night movies.

They were both laying on their assigned beds watching the end of 'Live Free or Die', a movie which Dean watched a thousand times already and was still enraptured each time he saw it.

Dean briefly looked down at the pizza box on the end table and opened it to reveal the last slice of pizza.

"You eating that?" Dean asked more as a statement than a question, causing Sam to shift away from this musings and frown at the oil-soaked slice.

They had no choice but to order a small plain cheese pizza for their dinner. The town they were staying at was much too small for anything less than 'cash only' meal stops and their FBI personas prevented them from hustling at pool to earn some much needed funds. It was lucky that Dean found the twenty dollar bill after the first meeting with the dog, otherwise, they wouldn't have any food at all.

"No, 'm good," Sam mumbled.

Dean gave a fierce look back at his brother's refusal but ended up shrugging and his eyes went back to the movie. It was a move practiced so many times and Sam just knew that Dean wasn't done with his intention on giving Sam the last pizza.

There was a second when Sam could see an eight year old boy do the same thing while watching the first 'Die Hard' movie.

This was happening a lot.

It's the common belief that a person's life flashes before their eyes at the moments before their death. Sam, however, found that both true and false. Moments of life flashed around him all the time: Karen's graying hair against the light of an unknown bar, Bobby feeding his dogs, a stranger in black with a hand on his shoulder, Castiel looking up at him with hope, like saying a prayer.

A smell or a flash of light will trigger a random memory like it may mean something (_everything_).

Dean, as eloquent as always, doesn't know the thoughts in Sam's head and pushes the pizza box closer to Sam.

"Eat it, Bitch," Dean ordered, not even bothering to take his eyes away from John McClane's bold leap onto a moving car.

There were so much Sam wanted to tell Dean. There were so many words Sam would never, ever say.

_We're both hungry. We're both orphans, so why does it have to be me?_

_You deserve more._

_I saw the dog again when you were getting the first aid kit for my ankle. It looked so sad, Dean. I think it knew. _

_I'm scared. I know I have to atone, but I'm scared. _

"Go mbeannaí Dia duit, Jerk," Sam growled instead and he had a small sense of satisfaction when Dean looked confused.

There really isn't much he can do at the end of the world. Have faith, maybe, in these small moments in time. Find better reasons for hope.

And try. Even when it's not enough, he'll try.


End file.
